Giving Credit to a Creator

“FLOWERS are for beauty, and fruits for use. But many of the fruits are beautiful. Our heavenly Father likes to make beauty go along with what is useful.” This quote is not from a religious textbook. It is from a science book entitled The Child’s Book of Nature. Written in 1887, its author, Worthington Hooker, M.D., intended the book to be used in families and schools for teaching children.

The style of writing in this book gives evidence of the author’s belief in and awe of a Creator. Dr. Hooker further writes: “The variety of pleasant tastes in the fruits of the earth is very great, as you will see if you will think of as many of them as you can. What an evidence is this of God’s abundant goodness! He does not gratify us merely in a few things, but in many things. The pleasant things of this world are almost endless in their variety. How strange it is that any one can know all this, and live on day after day without any gratitude to his Maker!”

When The Child’s Book of Nature was first published, Darwin’s theories had been widely circulated for almost three decades. Yet, Dr. Hooker’s book shows that even in the late 19th century, a textbook could openly credit God, rather than blind chance, for the wonders of nature.​—Compare Isaiah 40:26.